If cash is king, why is it treated as a by-product rather than a focus? I argue that the most important thing to look at in evaluating business performance is cash accessibility, or the ability of a company to use its free cash when and where it needs it. Businesses may have cash tied up in different places for a variety of reasons — often having to do with currency restrictions, banking regulations, and taxes — which can compromise cash accessibility. […] Most companies do not have a handle on how accessible their cash is because their data collection and their reporting functions do not consider it a priority. […] Because the focus has traditionally been free cash flow, as opposed to accessible free cash flow, no standardized financial reports, ratios, or metrics exist to measure or assess it.
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